Borderlands 3 Won’t Be At E3, Gearbox Claims (Kind Of)

Gearbox head Randy Pitchford has publicly denied rumors that Borderlands 3 will be shown at E3 this year. The founder and president produced a string of tweets centered around magic tricks, and embedded the announcement in the middle of them.

4/ For example, I could write it out now precisely and specifically that “Borderlands 3” will not be at E3 and many of you will choose not to believe it. Many of you will find a way to interpret the intent to suit what you want to believe regardless of what is true.

The denial appears clear enough, but it’s just odd enough to keep us speculating. Why is the name in quotation marks? Why couch it in a long talk about illusions and trickery? Why is it phrased as a hypothetical at all? It stands to reason that Pitchford could be attempting some clever misdirection, and that we’ll see Borderlands 3 in some form at the event–even if it’s not called by that name.

Or, alternately, Pitchford could be legitimately telling fans not to expect the game at the show this year, and he’s using some imagery from his other passion–stage magic–to illustrate his point. If that’s the case and Borderlands 3 is nowhere to be found, we can’t say he didn’t warn us.

Pitchford did finish the tweet thread by thanking fans for their passion and support and saying that Gearbox is “working harder than we have ever worked in order to create new and exciting things.” Last year, Pitchford obliquely hinted at Borderlands 3, saying that 90% of the studio was “working on the thing I think most of you guys want us to be working on.” He probably didn’t mean Battleborn 2, so we’ve been expecting a Borderlands 3 confirmation ever since. Take-Two has hinted that one of its biggest franchises will get a new entry by early next year.